After 4 years of being Japan-less during the pandemic, I finally made it back for the first time in September 2023. I’m now back again for my second trip in a year.
Feeling blessed.
I arrived two nights ago, and am still heavily jetlagged. Woke up at 2:00 a.m. yesterday morning and today, and knew that attempting further sleep was futile. This morning I was reviewing Instagram posts from last year’s trip, and came across this shot from Modern Jazz Jamaica, one of the Sapporo jazz kissas I visited. While there I roughly calculated they had 7,000-plus records stacked about the place. I wondered how they were sorted.
Yesterday I spent time in Shinjuku (where I’m staying my first three nights) and did some jazz record shopping. The question of sorting came up again as I tried to figure out the organization in each store I visited. Some order by artist in general, while others sort first by instrument and then artist. The biggest difference I noticed is that all stores sort alphabetically by first name, not last.
That all got me pondering frequently asked Instagram questions on organizing my music collection, both how I sort physically, and how I catalog and organize everything.
Storage
The way my listening room has evolved, I have three main storage areas. First, there’s the central record and audio cabinet built by my friend Scott of Audio Acoustic Engineering (he also built the record display shelves above the cabinet, and yes, I get asked about the cabinet and displays a lot too). A 6-foot row of records, with storage space for in- and out-of-rotation audio equipment, and built like a tank.
Second, on the left is an adjustable MCM wall cabinet (built by my dad in the early ‘60s) that my mom gave me when she downsized. She’s still using part of the whole unit, so I only got two risers, two dedicated record cases and a couple of shelves. By spacing the record cases just right I’ve got space for four rows of records.
And third, on the right is an alcove into which I built a simple plywood unit with two more rows of records (plus one row on top). I’m not a handyman, so there’s a few millimeters of sag to that unit which bugs me, but it does the job for now. Eventually I’ll invest in some quality wood and fill the alcove with four or five rows all the way from bottom to top.
Recently I also got some ‘70s-styled milk/record crates which I have scattered about the room, and which I use for varied purposes. These come from my friend Tony with a Calgary startup, the HiFi Cabinet Company.
Sorting
So, into that storage my collection goes. Sorting wise, there are a number of levels. Like many collectors, the first sorting level is by genre; my collection is divided into Classical, Jazz, Japanese Jazz (different enough and important enough to be given it’s own category), and Modern/Miscellaneous (everything that doesn’t fit the earlier categories, so Rock, Pop, Soul, R&B, Blues, Country, Electronic, World, and anything else).
Japanese Jazz takes the top row of the MCM rack on the left. Modern/Miscellaneous takes the two saggy-ply alcove rows. Classical takes the row on top of the saggy alcove unit. And Jazz fills the remaining three MCM rows and the AAE cabinet.
How I sort within categories depends on the category. For Classical (119 records and counting), I sort first by composer, then size of ensemble, then main instrument, and finally by performing artist. For example, for Bach I start with solo pieces, then duos, then trios and so on. Solo pieces are ordered by cello, keyboard and violin. And Bach’s Solo Cello Suites are then sorted by artist (Fournier, Starker and Tortellier, with hopefully more to come).
I keep box sets separate from sleeved single and double disk sets, but they’re organized the same way.
For other genres, I sort more simply, first alphabetically by artist and then chronologically by year of release. This certainly makes sense for Japanese Jazz (95 disks) and Modern/Miscellaneous (293 records) as those don’t take that much space.
For Jazz (895 and rising) I’ve experimented a bit with sorting, but have now reverted to the artist chronological system. For a while I was sorting by audiophile vinyl (Analogue Productions, MoFi, Classic Records, Impex, etc.) and non-audiophile. Then I created a separate section for Blue Note Tone Poets. Then I created a separate section for multi-disk releases and box sets.
This all got a bit confusing though as I couldn’t decide whether Blue Note Classics and Acoustic Sounds releases should be filed under “audiophile” or “non-audiophile,” and I also had individual artists filed in two or three different places. Hence the decision to consolidate again and simply sort by artist and session date.
The unfortunate thing about my storage set-up is that, as I keep adding more records to the collection, I’m running out of room. This is where the milk crates come in handy; in one I have a bunch of records I pulled that I haven’t listened to in a while (my “playlist crate”) and in another I have recently purchased disks I want easy access to (they’ll get played multiple times before I file them properly).
Cataloging
One of the best decisions I made when I started collecting vinyl again six years ago was to start cataloging what I had from day one. I’ve heard horror stories from friends who waited until they had hundreds or thousands of records before they started tracking their collection; a daunting task for sure, especially when you have to figure out which release you have of each and every album!
I wanted something that could track pressings, condition and value, and that I could access with my phone when out crate digging (to check if I had something already). I knew my collection was going to grow quickly and that I’d start forgetting what I did and didn’t already have, and didn’t want to end up with too many duplicates.
After researching a bit I decided on Discogs, a user-built database organized around artists, labels, and releases that’s been around since the turn of the millennium. A quick search on the site tells me the database now contains over 16 million recorded releases by over 8 million artists on 2 million-plus record labels.
In addition to cataloging, users can create want lists, estimate collection and individual record values, and buy and sell on the Discogs marketplace. Albums can be assigned to folders (I’ve set up folders for different genres and media types like vinyl, CD, SACD).
The image below shows the most recent purchases in the Japanese Jazz Vinyl folder. We also see I have one item in my shopping cart and I have alerts about availability of several items from my want list. I can access similar information on my phone when I’m away from my laptop.
So, how do you organize your collection, and do you have a cataloging system? If your systems are different, I’d love to hear about them in the comments, or you can message me at @audioloveyyc.
Louis-Alexandre Simard
September 16, 2024 at 1:25 pm
Almost the same, we got genre which goes
Electronic (Ambient, IDM, Tech House, Minimal, etc) ex: (Nils Frahm, Boards of Canada, Extrawelt, Caribou, Four Tet, Bjork)all by artist then release date.
Alternative (alternative rock, trip hop, indie, indie folk) ex: (RHCP, Gorillaz, Sufjan Stevens, Belle and Sebastian, Nirvana, The Clash)
Rock (Classic Rock, Folk, Prog, Psychedelic) ex: All Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Queen.
Jazz/soul/funk (Bebop, Modern, soul, funk, r’n’b, Gospel)
Hip Hop ( Instrumental hip hop, Downtempo, Rap, Modern R’n’B)
Collection now stands at 263 and some genres are mixed simply because there aren’t enough records to make a section.
rl1856
September 16, 2024 at 5:40 pm
Definitely a dilemma for large collections. I organize by genre then artist. Jazz, Rock/Pop/Oldies, Classical. I store audiophile and premium reissues with the respective artists in their genre sections. I have 2 additional categories: To be cleaned for newly acquired used LPs, or existing LPs in need of cleaning. New Purchases which is exactly what the title implies- new to me LPs (new or used). Physical storage is handled by a mix of IKEA Kallax shelves, built with glue, hard backs added, and then secured to wall studs. I used a pr of 4×4, with a pr of 1×4 installed on their sides, on top of the 4×4. Final result is a pr of custom 5×4 cabinets. I cut pieces of 1in flat pine to the exact width of each cubbie as backstops for LPs. Works for me, and looks great in my listening room !
Mister Trevor
September 21, 2024 at 7:07 pm
Thanks for the piece Eric, that really helped because 85-90% of my collection of 600 odd singles and 150 LPs were bought on discogs, so I always used the ‘add to collection’ option. Didn’t know they could be organised into folders though, so that’s going to be really useful. As a Vinyl DJ though I keep an excel spreadsheet and put my purchases into it, including their bpm and notes which can include comments on intro/ outro, energy and other thoughts. I always forget what tunes I already have, so some housekeeping is essential!!
Colin
September 22, 2024 at 2:32 pm
I have very roughly 1,500 records and 1,500 CDs. I keep them all in alphabetical order. The CDs are in another room from my main music equipment so I periodically scan the shelves and bring a pile in, returning others I’ve played. So far, not so interesting, but thought I’d comment on my digital setup which is based around Apple Music, both mp3s and my streamed library. I’ve arrived at my sidebar setup over a long period and it consists of the following structure:
Artists (folder of currently most popular with me, changes fairly regularly, but is currently smart playlists for Bugge Wesseltoft, Egberto Gismonti, John Abercrombie, John Zorn, Jon Hassell, Kraftwerk, Kuniyuki Takahashi, Oregon and Toru Takemitsu)
Playlists (multiple sub-folders including Apple playlists, selected Countries (e.g. Japan, Norway, etc), Labels (e.g. Blue Note, ECM, Hyperdub, etc), Years (folders for each year from 2000 to 2024, Jazz by Decade)
⭐️ – smart playlist where any newly added album is given a single star when it’s added
⭐️⭐️ – smart playlist, recently added albums I need to listen to more
⭐️⭐️⭐️ – smart playlist, recently added albums I want to keep listening to
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – smart playlist, older albums from my library I want to listen to again
I’ll add that, after years of feeling overloaded, I’ve become very deliberate about adding new music as I prefer to listen more deeply than more widely. Wish I’d learnt that a long time ago! Even when I do add new music, allocating a single star, I may delete it after a listen or two if I don’t think it’s of enough interest to me. Music with two or three stars forms the basis of most of my physical purchases.
I hope that’s of some interest, thanks for sharing your approach in which I see some overlap with my own.
I have a quick question – in your top photo I see a vu meter of some sort, can you share a link where I could purchase it or something similar? Thanks in advance.
Phil
September 24, 2024 at 11:28 am
Thank you for an engaging read that covers the dilemmas of organising vinyl and how you’ve managed it. It resonates (I nearly wrote that you had struck a chord but that’s too obvious).
One question – do you organise by artist first name or second name – so in your photos of Miles Davis and Bill Evans photo – is it by ‘D’ followed by ‘E’ or ‘Bill’ is close to the beginning and ‘Miles’ somewhere around the middle?
Thank you for sharing the love.